Anne Arundel County Council approves medical marijuana zoning tweak

Anne Arundel County Council members on Monday night passed legislation tweaking the county's medical marijuana zoning rules, a change officials said will align the law with the council's original intentions.

Council Bill 21-17 specifies that medical marijuana dispensaries located north of Route 50 or north of the northeast shore of the South River are not allowed within 1,000 feet of a house or school building. Those restrictions do not apply elsewhere in the county.

The change, which passed unanimously, represents a tightening of the previous law, which banned dispensaries within 1,000 feet of homes and schools only if the business was located both north of Route 50 and east of the South River.

Land affected by the updated restriction includes Annapolis, the Broadneck Peninsula, Crofton, Odenton and all of north county, including Glen Burnie and Pasadena.

The change will not apply to an application for a dispensary on West Street, which could become the county's first. While the site falls within the new boundary lines, it will not be affected because the application is already in progress.

Administration officials and councilmen alike said the bill's changes describe the law they thought they had passed when the rules for medical marijuana were first crafted in late 2015.

"We believe (this) is the intent when we discussed this bill originally," said Bernie Marczyk, a lobbyist for County Executive Steve Schuh.

Councilman Chris Trumbauer, an Annapolis Democrat, voted in favor of the bill because, he said, it "just corrects the code to be what we thought we passed back then, so there are no additional regulations put on the industry."

"I continue to believe that our code is too restrictive for this new industry, but I'm going to vote yes because I'm honoring the compromise we passed last year," he said.

Councilman Pete Smith, a Severn Democrat who pushed for the 1,000-foot restrictions when the original medical marijuana regulations were passed, predicted the council could revisit the rules for dispensaries, growers and processing businesses in the future.

"Because it's such a new industry, we may have to bite at this apple in the future to make sure it's actually doing what we want it to do and we have the safeguards in place," he said.

"I think the majority of us would like to see them open, and if we create this system that's too restrictive, too cumbersome, we may need to look at how we set it up," he said.

Two resolutions proposing to sell off surplus county property also prompted commentary from the dais at the council's meeting Monday, which lasted less than an hour from start to finish.

Council Chairman John Grasso, R-Glen Burnie, registered his objection to the idea of surplusing unused county land, a recent Schuh administration initiative.

Though he ultimately voted for both properties — a one-acre parcel near Hedges Road in Pasadena and a three-quarter acre lot at 240 Jennings Road in Severna Park — to be sold off, he said he didn't see the harm in letting open land sit. And he warned that getting rid of county land could lead to more infill development throughout Anne Arundel.

"It's part of being useful if it's natural and left alone, at least that's my take on it," he said.

The council approved both surplus resolutions unanimously.

In other action Monday, the council:

•Approved Council Bill 17-17, which allows car, truck and recreational vehicle dealerships as a conditional use in C3 commercial districts. Trumbauer was the sole dissenting vote because, he said, "I just couldn't figure out where the constituency was that needed this... I don't get the sense that there aren't enough car dealerships."

•Unanimously passed Council Bill 19-17, which creates an approval process for farmers who want to build small outbuildings within 60 feet of another structure on their property.

•Unanimously passed Council Bill 23-17, which reqires residents billed by the county for disposal of personal property, sidewalk improvement, weed removal, stormwater system maintenance and other work to pay within 30 days.

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